Funding for PURE Project welcomed

Mr Bryan Doyle, Chief Executive, Wicklow County Council has welcomed the announcement by the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, that it will be providing funding of €115,000 per annum over a three-year period for the environmental project, PURE (Protecting Uplands and Rural Environments).

He stated: “Wicklow County Council, as lead partner to this very successful project, will continue to work with all stakeholders. I wish to thank Mr. Ian Davis, Pure Project Manager, for his dedication and commitment to PURE.”

Mr Davis added: “On behalf of the stakeholders of PURE I would like to thank Minister Denis Naughten and the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, for their continued support”.

PURE is a partnership project and the first of its kind in Ireland which incorporates statutory and non-statutory organisations, including: Wicklow County Council, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, South Dublin County Council, Coillte, National Parks & Wildlife Service, and the Wicklow Uplands Council. It is funded by Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment,

PURE was established to combat illegal dumping/fly-tipping in the Wicklow/Dublin Uplands and was officially launched in September 2006.

Since the project began PURE has collected over 9,000 individual dumping sites with the removal of over 2,800 tonnes of rubbish from the landscape. If all of this rubbish was put into standard household rubbish bags, it would fill over 400,000 bags. If each bag that PURE has removed from the uplands was lined up, they would stretch over 320 kilometres in length, which is longer than a journey from Dublin to Dingle.

In announcing the funding, Minister Naughten expressed his satisfaction with the progress of the PURE Project to date, saying that “Given the proximity of the Dublin Wicklow Uplands to the largest population centre, PURE addresses a problem that is unique in Ireland and it addresses this problem in a unique way with a partnership approach, addressing the problem of illegal dumping and fly tipping in the Wicklow and Dublin Uplands. This partnership between local communities, local authorities and government agencies has enjoyed great success in keeping one of our most beautiful and most visited landscapes free of litter and the blight of illegal dumping.

“We are all aware that the Wicklow and Dublin Uplands are one of this country’s most important and popular amenity areas for both tourists and citizens and I am delighted to extend funding of €345,000 to the Project over the three-year period 2017-2019. I now urge everyone to think of both the environmental and economic consequences of their actions and to protect our shared environment by disposing of litter and waste in the correct manner.”

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